London - SAS Global Communications, an international provider of managed and professional network services has announced the launch of its 2011 corporate social responsibility programme, a cause-related initiative which focuses on supporting charities closest to the hearts of its customers, rather than nominating a charity itself. The managed services specialist hopes to raise at least £20,000 for charity by making donations on behalf of customers who participate in the company’s marketing and referral programmes. It also plans to donate a further £10,000 to support fundraising initiatives for a charity nominated by its employees.

“In 2010, we received outstanding support for our nominated charity, the Motor Neurone Disease Association, and were able to donate more than £26,000 to the cause,” said Charles Davis, CEO for SAS Global Communications. “This year, we wanted to build on that success by creating a programme that is not only important to SAS but is also relevant to the customers who work with us.”

SAS hopes that by taking an alternative approach to cause-related marketing, some of the smaller, less well established charities will also have the opportunity to benefit from the programme.

“We know that supporting a potentially significant number of charities could be an administration nightmare and I’m sure a lot of companies would question the value of our approach from a branding perspective,” said Davis. “What we hope to gain from it is the opportunity to strengthen the relationships we have with our customers while, at the same time, benefiting a number of worthy causes.”

SAS plans to raise money for the charities nominated by its customers by launching a series of programmes that encourage customers to participate in initiatives which support the development of its managed services business in return for a donation to their charity fund.

To allow the company’s customers, partners and employees, along with supporters of the initiative, to chart its success with the campaign, SAS will report on its progress on Twitter at http://twitter.com/thesasgroup.

More information on the programme is available at www.sas.co.uk/world-free-project.